Reading an enemy’s sacred texts was seen as a step toward apostasy

Evidence

Writing from Paris to his “most honor’d friend, Mr Francis Godolphin” (brother of Hobbes’s deceased friend, Sydney Godolphin, who had provided him “with real testimonies of his good opinion”), Hobbes admits that his own constructions, his “discourse of Common-wealth,” may very well offend a number of people. … Either way, says Hobbes, it’s nothing personal, “for I speak not of the men, but (in the Abstract) of the Seat of Power.” Hobbes goes on to locate the potential nexus of harm, arguably the most offensive part of his discourse, in his treatment-his use and abuse-of the Bible, certain texts of which, he says matter-of-factly, “are the Outworks of the Enemy”: “That which perhaps may most offend, are certain Texts of Holy Scripture, alledged by me to other purpose than ordinarily they used to be by others. But I have done it with due submission, and also (in order to my Subject) necessarily; for they are the Outworks of the Enemy, from whence they impugne the Civill Power.” — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 350 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Having been here, the enemy is already constituted as an object of knowledge, agent or object of a violence that may or may not have become actualized, much less determined as war or battle, as psychological or social. Yet what can only be indicated here is that, as he draws away, the enemy also remains, and he remains to be read. — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 373 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Hobbes treated Scripture texts as the enemy’s defensive outworks — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab: A History of the…, 350; The enemy persists as a readable text after having been historically present. — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab: A History of the…, 373

Broader Connections

• Hobbes treated Scripture texts as the enemy’s defensive outworks #corroborates (1.00) — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 350
• The enemy persists as a readable text after having been historically present. #complicates (0.90) — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 373